C, hard at work on the mower. And yeah baby, that's one of our sixty year old peony bushes!
Don't know what these are but the crazy bushes in front of our house exploded into these for about two weeks. They are all gone now, but weren't they lovely?
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Room to Roam
C, hard at work on the mower. And yeah baby, that's one of our sixty year old peony bushes!Don't know what these are but the crazy bushes in front of our house exploded into these for about two weeks. They are all gone now, but weren't they lovely?
Pops of Sunny Yellow
The outside of our house overwhelms me a little bit. The yard is huge, and parts of it are a tad wild and unruly. I don't know what most of the plants are, and although I have lots of ideas and vision, I just don't know where exactly to begin.
So, to get started on sprucing up the exterior, I decided to address a smaller area, something that is small enough for me to feel I can wrap my head around - the entry! Technically our house does have a 'front door', but nobody uses it (meaning it's a little sad and neglected). I'll tackle that later. For now, I just wanted to inject a little bit of color into the side entry- enter the pops of sunny yellow! The first step was to refresh this bench I got for $30 on Craigslist.
A few coats of Sunporch Yellow, and voila! Things are looking sunnier already.
Then, I got inspired. Why not refresh the mailbox as well? Our driveway is located in the midst of Fern Gully and my parents have driven right past it each visit thus far. Now we have a landmark - turn by the yellow mailbox!
From this:
The yellow has now taken over! To complete the picture, I added a few sunny pots (still need to plant something in there, but this is a work in progress), and a pillow on our porch swing in this top fabric from ikea:
As C and I walked in the giant blue box, I saw a the perfect yellow and white striped pillow in the store display, with my name all over it. I'm a sucker for anything striped. I didn't want to steal it from it's happy display home, so I kept my eyes open for it throughout the rest of the store, but it was nowhere to be found. I left a patient C at the bottom of the escalator and did a couple more wild laps through the other two levels looking for the darn thing but to no avail. He convinced me to just take the one from the display, where I discovered it wasn't actually for sale - just a floor sample of a pillow and a case made from the fabric you can buy. The checkout guy must have seen the crazy in my eyes, because he rang it up for me in some magical Ikea code anyway, and I left a happy camper!
(Sidenote: While I was running two levels above him, I texted C to tell him I wasn't successful. He texted me back "Why? Did you trip over all that hair you were pulling out on the way to find your pillow?" Made me laugh.)
I think a few plants in white and yellow, and a nice patio umbrella will complete the picture. I have my eye on this one from World Market:
Almost there!
So, to get started on sprucing up the exterior, I decided to address a smaller area, something that is small enough for me to feel I can wrap my head around - the entry! Technically our house does have a 'front door', but nobody uses it (meaning it's a little sad and neglected). I'll tackle that later. For now, I just wanted to inject a little bit of color into the side entry- enter the pops of sunny yellow! The first step was to refresh this bench I got for $30 on Craigslist.
A few coats of Sunporch Yellow, and voila! Things are looking sunnier already.
Then, I got inspired. Why not refresh the mailbox as well? Our driveway is located in the midst of Fern Gully and my parents have driven right past it each visit thus far. Now we have a landmark - turn by the yellow mailbox!From this:
To this!
The yellow has now taken over! To complete the picture, I added a few sunny pots (still need to plant something in there, but this is a work in progress), and a pillow on our porch swing in this top fabric from ikea:
As C and I walked in the giant blue box, I saw a the perfect yellow and white striped pillow in the store display, with my name all over it. I'm a sucker for anything striped. I didn't want to steal it from it's happy display home, so I kept my eyes open for it throughout the rest of the store, but it was nowhere to be found. I left a patient C at the bottom of the escalator and did a couple more wild laps through the other two levels looking for the darn thing but to no avail. He convinced me to just take the one from the display, where I discovered it wasn't actually for sale - just a floor sample of a pillow and a case made from the fabric you can buy. The checkout guy must have seen the crazy in my eyes, because he rang it up for me in some magical Ikea code anyway, and I left a happy camper!
(Sidenote: While I was running two levels above him, I texted C to tell him I wasn't successful. He texted me back "Why? Did you trip over all that hair you were pulling out on the way to find your pillow?" Made me laugh.)
I think a few plants in white and yellow, and a nice patio umbrella will complete the picture. I have my eye on this one from World Market:
Almost there!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Project #1: Operation Bedroom Door
As soon as we moved in, we knew we wanted to switch things up enough just to make the farmhouse feel like our own. I love walking through the rooms and picturing C's aunts as young girls, whispering secrets in their bedroom, which is now our guestroom, or his mother giving voice lessons at the piano in her music room, with baby Chris in his nearby play-pen, in what is now our bedroom. And I love putting a new spin on the old. Right away, we decided to make the "great room" our living room. It previously was a more formal sitting area. Then, we opted to move the left-behind baby grand piano into the former tv room, making that the new music room. That left the old music room/office to become our master bedroom! We like this arrangement because the room is larger than the three tiny sleeping rooms upstairs, it stays much cooler, and both of the bathrooms are on the first floor, so no sleepy tumbles down the stairs in the middle of the night!
Our new master bedroom has high ceilings and huge windows which pour in beautiful sunlight, but it had no doors since it was never used as a bedroom before. Actually, when the house belonged to C's grandparents, it was their formal dining room (our current dining room served as their master bedroom). There is an extra wide doorway separating it from our music room, and a regular size doorway into the back hallway. For a temporary fix, we stopped by Pier 1 and picked up this plantation style room divider for the wider doorway.
It matches our bedroom perfectly, and complements the dark piano in the connecting music room. We have some ideas for a more permanent solution (more on that later), but for now this is perfect. We are the only two in the house so privacy isn't really as issue. The smaller doorway made our bedroom visible from the kitchen and living room, so we felt a real door was necessary. Luckily, back when we moved in C had been poking around the basement, and found an original door (albeit in very sad shape), down in the potato cellar. Yes, we have a potato cellar! It's scary and dark and dank and if I never go in there in my life I'm okay with that. Here's what the door looked like upon discovery:
We think the black comes from some renters before my mother and father-in-law bought the house. How lovely! C and Mike worked for hours scraping off the multiple layers of paint and sanding the door to its original state:
The three of us worked all day and into the night on this one silly door. Finding the right hardware proved impossible, but C was able to modify parts we did have with new parts and you can't even tell the difference. We found a good option for the door handle, and primed and painted two bright, shiny coats of paint.
As we giddily went to hang our beautiful (better looking than all the others in the house) door in it's new resting place, we were startled to find that it was TOO BIG for the door frame. Gah! My dad would be appalled that no - we didn't measure it to begin with. We were blinded with our excitement at finding an original door in the basement! It was meant to be!
So, we remeasure, sawed, sanded and hacked our way through the perfect door until it fit. We broke every rule in restoring a historic element of a home I'm sure, but hey - it worked!
Chris learning his lesson.
(Bye!)
Our new master bedroom has high ceilings and huge windows which pour in beautiful sunlight, but it had no doors since it was never used as a bedroom before. Actually, when the house belonged to C's grandparents, it was their formal dining room (our current dining room served as their master bedroom). There is an extra wide doorway separating it from our music room, and a regular size doorway into the back hallway. For a temporary fix, we stopped by Pier 1 and picked up this plantation style room divider for the wider doorway.
It matches our bedroom perfectly, and complements the dark piano in the connecting music room. We have some ideas for a more permanent solution (more on that later), but for now this is perfect. We are the only two in the house so privacy isn't really as issue. The smaller doorway made our bedroom visible from the kitchen and living room, so we felt a real door was necessary. Luckily, back when we moved in C had been poking around the basement, and found an original door (albeit in very sad shape), down in the potato cellar. Yes, we have a potato cellar! It's scary and dark and dank and if I never go in there in my life I'm okay with that. Here's what the door looked like upon discovery:
We think the black comes from some renters before my mother and father-in-law bought the house. How lovely! C and Mike worked for hours scraping off the multiple layers of paint and sanding the door to its original state:
The three of us worked all day and into the night on this one silly door. Finding the right hardware proved impossible, but C was able to modify parts we did have with new parts and you can't even tell the difference. We found a good option for the door handle, and primed and painted two bright, shiny coats of paint.As we giddily went to hang our beautiful (better looking than all the others in the house) door in it's new resting place, we were startled to find that it was TOO BIG for the door frame. Gah! My dad would be appalled that no - we didn't measure it to begin with. We were blinded with our excitement at finding an original door in the basement! It was meant to be!
So, we remeasure, sawed, sanded and hacked our way through the perfect door until it fit. We broke every rule in restoring a historic element of a home I'm sure, but hey - it worked!
Chris learning his lesson.
(Bye!)The Ah-ha! Moment
I'll just write this post for the sake of keeping a record of the major moment when C and I knew we had to buy his childhood home. We had initially moved in, and agreed that we would give it three months as renters. We'd either find something else to purchase in that time, and/or know if we wanted to live in the farmhouse for good. And we felt productive - knowing we were getting to sample a house, so to speak.
From the moment we moved in, it felt peaceful. Something we have needed and longed for during the previous months of indecision and instability. I knew as I was unpacking that it wasn't going to be temporary, but neither of us declared that at first. It felt like home. We loved the space, the quiet, the convenience, the history, the stories...We explored the dog park, walked the neighborhood, got our hands dirty in the yard. Then one day as we pulled into the driveway (past that pesky For Sale sign), we saw a number of cars - a very nice Lexus, a landscape designer's company car, and a construction company vehicle. They were all outside, walking the yard. We rolled down our windows and apologized - the realtor hadn't told us there would be a showing, and did they need to get into the house? They quickly answered they weren't there to see the house, just the property, and asked if they could come back again with another contractor? We nodded like little bobble-heads, rolled up our windows and faced each other. "We're buying it," Chris said. "I know," I answered.
It was that simple - faced with the prospect of someone tearing it down to put up another giant, generic McMansion, we knew staying there was the right thing to do. So, we will put our best efforts into the house, and hope that our improvements will be enough to make the next buyer see the charm and sweetness in this little house, so that someday when we move on, we can drive by with our kids and point out the house where their childhood memories live as well.
From the moment we moved in, it felt peaceful. Something we have needed and longed for during the previous months of indecision and instability. I knew as I was unpacking that it wasn't going to be temporary, but neither of us declared that at first. It felt like home. We loved the space, the quiet, the convenience, the history, the stories...We explored the dog park, walked the neighborhood, got our hands dirty in the yard. Then one day as we pulled into the driveway (past that pesky For Sale sign), we saw a number of cars - a very nice Lexus, a landscape designer's company car, and a construction company vehicle. They were all outside, walking the yard. We rolled down our windows and apologized - the realtor hadn't told us there would be a showing, and did they need to get into the house? They quickly answered they weren't there to see the house, just the property, and asked if they could come back again with another contractor? We nodded like little bobble-heads, rolled up our windows and faced each other. "We're buying it," Chris said. "I know," I answered.
It was that simple - faced with the prospect of someone tearing it down to put up another giant, generic McMansion, we knew staying there was the right thing to do. So, we will put our best efforts into the house, and hope that our improvements will be enough to make the next buyer see the charm and sweetness in this little house, so that someday when we move on, we can drive by with our kids and point out the house where their childhood memories live as well.
Sold!
I sheepishly admit it - I forgot I had a blog. Okay, that's a lie. I remembered, and I mentally 'wrote' many many posts since my last one. But I've been busy! I peeked at my last post and was surprised to see that it was from when we moved into the house - as renters! To spare you the lengthy post, here's the summary:
- We bought the house!
- I know! I can't believe it either!
- We filed the offer cancellation papers for the bungalow about two weeks after we moved into the farmhouse.
- We closed on our house on Good Friday, April 2nd, 2010.
- I told my husband and GG that the three of us need to stay away from any real-estate based decisions now for a very long, long time.
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